Have the Boosh. Word.

Skip this if you don’t like cycling. 

It seems that the UCI is finally cleaning it’s act up, and banning a lot of the leading riders for Le Tour. Ullrich, Basso, Sevilla, Beloki, Gutierrez have all been linked with the doping / blood transfusion network in Spain, as have the already banned Heras and Hamilton.  Ullrich (arguably cycling’s biggest talent) has been dropped from his team, and so might Basso, who just won the Tour of Italy, and was favourite for the GC at le tour.

I’m kinda glad that this has all finally been exposed, but at the same time gutted that we’re not going to see an Ullrich/Basso showdown.  EPO / Blood transfusions don’t instantly make you faster, they just allow you to train harder and suffer more.  In a perverse kind of way it is more exciting seeing le tour when you know half the riders are doping; you can see that these riders are pushing their bodies to the absolute limit. They may have blood like treacle and enlarged hearts, but fuck it, they can cycle up hills fast.

All this asks the question that as doping gives you a good 20% advantage over your rivals, how did a clean Lance Armstrong manage to beat a supposed doped Ullrich / Basso, and a doping Hamilton / Heras / Millar / Rumsas?

(Assuming no Basso) Vinokourov to win, Valverde second, and Millar or Zabriskie for the prologue.

The Eden Bookings site has crashed, but I’ve managed to get 3 tickets for Muse at Ticketmaster, which subsequently sold out in under 20 minutes.

It’s gonna fucking rock.

Went to see a couple of bands last night avec Henry.

Seven Days Awake (Ex- Fallen To??) were quite good, a bit rocky, a bit roar-y, a bit melodic.

Even Nine are currently being pimped by Pirate FM, kinda like an old man wearing a hoody and laced up skate shoes.  It doesn’t exactly do much for their credibility.  To be fair, they could play, but it’s not the kind of music I’m into.  A little bit of Maroon 5 blandness going on.

Am up for a bit of Marvin and the Gayes / Bugga action tonight if anyone’s up for that?

The Beehive are currently proving themselves to be pioneers in the agricultural public house field by laying turf inside the pub.  All that’s missing is a few dog turds and a sand pit to complete it’s park status, as it already has enough pikeys and cigarette butts.